The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Just now, peterw said:

But, as you say, it's, me peter w, that is a major part of the problem.

Agreed.

[Jareth]

Andy Burnham MUST be thinking about his strategy right now - would put money on him standing for parliament at the next election entirely with a view to stand for Labour leader. Have to say I don't fully know if he's got the metal to lead - but he does have the clean record and has been honing a slick social media style, winning the north en masse along the way. As much as I'd like McDonnell in, Burnham would probably be the most acceptable to most people in Labour.

[peterw]

16 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I've heard this thing about Starmer making Labour more electable, but I just don't get it, given he's attempting politics from the late 90s and his ham fisted attempts to bounce the party into changing its leadership election rules is going to fail and damage Starmer and his allies to the extent they're actually increasing the likelihood of a left wing leader getting in at the next attempt - you know, someone who believes in one vote per person. It's not the pandemic that has damaged Starmer, it's the people around him, and Starmer himself - turns out the forensic lawyer is actually a political featherweight.

Just because someone on social media says it doesn't make it either true or have any weight. If Starmer were to say that he's trying to fix the social system would Labour supporters be right to be up in arms that Starmer is attempting politics from the 1880s?  Whether Starmer is a political featherwieght is a different argument and he could turn out to be so - but I'm not sure in what context he could be anything other than he is now.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

Andy Burnham MUST be thinking about his strategy right now - would put money on him standing for parliament at the next election entirely with a view to stand for Labour leader. Have to say I don't fully know if he's got the metal to lead - but he does have the clean record and has been honing a slick social media style, winning the north en masse along the way. As much as I'd like McDonnell in, Burnham would probably be the most acceptable to most people in Labour.

Burnham presents as what some people (obviously) expected Starmer to be. He's not a Marxist, but he's also not devoid of any ideas. He at least provides some semblance of hope. 

I think ultimately that's all people really want. Hope. Even if we all know that in the end, nothing meaningful will ever change.  

[peterw]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Andy Burnham MUST be thinking about his strategy right now - would put money on him standing for parliament at the next election entirely with a view to stand for Labour leader. Have to say I don't fully know if he's got the metal to lead - but he does have the clean record and has been honing a slick social media style, winning the north en masse along the way. As much as I'd like McDonnell in, Burnham would probably be the most acceptable to most people in Labour.

But its not most people in Labour he has to appeal to. Its the so-called middle-England brigade that switched to Labour in 97. You want power? Then you have to play the to a different tune than the one Labour currently has. Its about mass appeal, and being Presidential. Its long stopped being about principle. Labour needs to re-learn the lesson.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 minute ago, peterw said:

But its not most people in Labour he has to appeal to. Its the so-called middle-England brigade that switched to Labour in 97. You want power? Then you have to play the to a different tune than the one Labour currently has. Its about mass appeal, and being Presidential. Its long stopped being about principle. Labour needs to re-learn the lesson.

Except this doesn't explain how an allotment dweller like Jeremy Corbyn got 12m people to vote for the party. So it is, evidently, total bollocks. 

[peterw]

In 2019? It was 10 million. Still sizeable enough - but not when you consider it was only around 30% of the vote. Or that Labour lost 60 seats - many in traditional Labour supporting areas. Clearly not total bollocks but something very worrying for Labour that needs to be addressed. 

[bickster]

25 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Except this doesn't explain how an allotment dweller like Jeremy Corbyn got 12m people to vote for the party. So it is, evidently, total bollocks. 

Corbyn has a net gain of something like -30 seats over the course of 2 General Elections

[tomsky_11]

36 minutes ago, peterw said:

Last polls (or last I saw) had Labour ahead - they weren't 4 years ago, or at any time under Corbyn's tenure.

Sorry, what?!

[darrenm]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Is that referring to me Darren?  If it is, then no, not at all. My posts on people saying he’s reneged on his pledges have been to ask “which ones and how”, (as a genuine question), to also express my disappointment at the absence of party policies and to express my opinion that I thought and expected that once they actually get some policies, then they won’t tally with his pledges, fully. For example:

I think he’s floundering in a thick soup of various savoury and unsavoury ingredients, some of his own making, some not. But that’s another question.

Honestly mate, not specifically. I remembered more than 1 person saying the same kind of thing.

Which ones and how. At least 1 now, objectively(?) broken:

then : 

now :

 

[bickster]

Just now, darrenm said:

Honestly mate, not specifically. I remembered more than 1 person saying the same kind of thing.

Which ones and how. At least 1 now, objectively(?) broken:

then : 

now :

 

Those two items are not mutually exclusive

[HanoiVillan]

12 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Sorry, what?!

Yeah, that was indeed 'complete bollocks'.

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Sorry, what?!

It is fair to say though that this is somewhat of an outlier

[HanoiVillan]

The part that makes it complete bollocks is that Labour were ahead in the polls for about 6 months from June 2017; the gap to the Tories was not large, but they had persistent small leads, and then the gap they were behind was also very narrow from end-2017 to early 2019 as well. 'At any time under Corbyn's tenure' is just factually inaccurate.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

28 minutes ago, bickster said:

Corbyn has a net gain of something like -30 seats over the course of 2 General Elections

Avoiding facts doesn’t change them.

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, peterw said:

Labour ahead - they weren't 4 years ago, or at any time under Corbyn's tenure. 

 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Saying that The Labour Party were more electable under Jeremy Corbyn isn't a defence of Jeremy Corbyn. It's a critique of Keir Starmer. 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Honestly mate, not specifically. I remembered more than 1 person saying the same kind of thing.

Which ones and how. At least 1 now, objectively(?) broken:

then : 

now :

 

Cool.

Those two there - they're not mutually exclusive. 

you can have public services in public hands and ALSO partner private enterprise. I (probably like you) suspect that anyone thinking (hypothetically) the moment Starmer is Prime Minister he would nationalise Rail, Water, Energy....etc. in his first term, if ever, will be disappointed. I'm not entirely sure (personally) that all of those things would be wise, anyway. Some, yes, sure,  others less so in the real world circumstances we have (and which change).

For example the other day @Davkaus made the comment that these energy companies being stuffed by the rocketing price of Gas on the international market going bust, saying they do nothing it should be a nationalised industry. Only partly true - take Ecotricity for example - they are a renewable generator of Electricity and gas as well as a "retailer". All the money they make (pretty much) goes back into building more renewable generating capacity. They fund this by selling their power at a higher price to people who are prepared to pay more. At this moment they generate (I think) all of their electricity, but haven't got there yet on Gas. Give it another 10 years maybe and they could be 100% renewable completely, as private enterprise. Meanwhile even if energy was currently already nationalised, Gas prices would still feed through to consumers and the demand from people for "price control" would effectively prohibit Ecotricity from doing what they do. Any nationalised industry is always going to have political influence in terms of Government priorities and voter whims and needs. There's also a limit on the amount of intellect and expertise the government and civil servants possess to innovate and improve. Both systems, private and nationalised have their pros and cons. All the detailed arguments and discussions of the merits of that stuff get turned into ideology (which is fine, I guess), but the complex implications and unintended consequences down the line get ignored because of ideological standpoints (which are often too rigidly held and based on rubbish - "the market is always more efficient " - nonsense, "it's always private profit, public losses" - nonsense. And so on).

I said at the time of the last (or last but one) election about Labours plan to nationalise water (at the time people were focused on Water charge rises) - nationalising water wasn't the most effective way to deal with that issue - apart from all the parliamentary time and effort necessary to bring water back public, they either pay the current market price to the shareholders, or they take it back at below market rate and essentially hit people's pensions, creating a pension and poverty problem. Then when they've got water public, who actually does the stuff that needs doing? It'll be the same people as now, just working for a different employer. But the government minister and servants overseeing it all are likely to be career civil servants, or an ever changing rota of Hancocks, Burgeons, Williamsons, and so on. Are they any better than who's doing it now? Wouldn't it be better to just legislate to introduce a cap on prices or profit margins? Taking a fraction of the time and effort, allowing government time and money to be spent on other areas, like I dunno, the NHS, or whatever?

 

 

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Saying that The Labour Party were more electable under Jeremy Corbyn isn't a defence of Jeremy Corbyn. It's a critique of Keir Starmer. 

It's also speculation (being polite). Not to defend either of those two, but Corbyn Labour spent a bit of time ahead in the pols, as has Starmer Labour (I think, last year?). We do know that Corbyn twice failed to get Labour elected, though. So ultimately he proved not to be electable (to absolutely no surprise on my part). Labour looks no more or less electable/unelectable now, tbh.

The current infighting an splits and stuff  - either the party breaks up - more Tory governments, or it works out how to resolve the seemingly unsolvable differences and cracks on with being a potential government in waiting. it's not looking promising.

[Jareth]

1 hour ago, peterw said:

You want power? Then you have to play the to a different tune